When it comes to his children’s relationships, Lionel Richie is a hands-off dad. The soul singer opened up to Us Weekly about letting his daughter Sofia Richie and her boyfriend Scott Disick’s romance run its course.
“Never get into dating advice,” Lionel, 68, told Us and other reporters at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Patron of the Artists Awards at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills on Thursday, November 9. “Because remember, it’s always like preschool. Whatever the argument was on Monday, they make up on Tuesday. And then the parents are mad at each other for the rest of the year. Just get the parents out of it [and] they’ll work it out. And if it’s really serious, they’ll come to me and figure it out. But they’ve got to go through the hard knocks. That’s just how it works.”
Us Weekly broke the news in early September that Sofia, 19, and Disick, 34, are dating. Lionel joked in an October 4 interview with Us that he was “scared to death” about his daughter’s new relationship. Since then, he has further reflected upon his initial reaction.
“I am scared to death about anybody dating anybody! But that’s a real political way to say it,” the Commodores frontman explained to Us on Thursday night. “When I met my first girlfriend at [age] 7, she was The One. My mother was going, ‘Oh, God. They’ll make such a great couple.’ At 7! Come on, [Sofia] is 19. … She is going to go take the turn, go through it, come out the other side. Don’t get involved, Dad. Just get out of the way and it will course itself.”
The model and the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star’s romance is quickly turning from a fling to the real thing. “Scott is telling friends that he’s in love with [Sofia],” a source exclusively revealed in the new issue of Us Weekly. “She is so into Scott. She has been for a while.”
The couple, who have a 15-year age difference, have the support of Disick’s ex Kourtney Kardashian and her famous family, too. “[They] are happy for Scott because he’s moving on,” the insider told Us. “If it’s good for them, then they’re supportive.”
